


Sea Change

by TheUnicornFountain



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Genre: Gen, The Ghost Ship, Wind Waker spoiler warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 18:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2438306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnicornFountain/pseuds/TheUnicornFountain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link's quest to gather the Triforce charts brings him to the Ghost Ship, and within that cursed hull the Hero of Winds faces a difficult choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that was written at the request of another. Comments, questions, and constructive criticism are always welcome. Please enjoy, thank you.

# Sea Change

Every seagull that wheeled above The King of Red Lions’s head had its own opinion to voice about the spot of land known as Diamond Steppe Island, which reared to the small boat’s right. The trees dotting the island swayed with the sea breezes, and the spring that flowed along its length babbled with the seawater lapping against the high walls. The day was a bright one, with the sun shining its warm light down upon the Great Sea to make each wave gleam. The King of Red Lions stretched his stiff jaw and coasted out of the island’s shadow in order to feel the sun on his hull.

He didn’t have long to sunbathe. A shout echoed down from the top of Diamond Steppe Island. The King of Red Lions turned in place and craned his head up to look at the boy waving from the cliff top. There was a chart fluttering in one of the waving hands. As The King of Red Lions watched, the boy rolled the chart up and tucked it into the waterproof Ritoan delivery bag that hung at the small of his back. With the chart secure, the boy jumped from the cliff top and plunged into the sea, kicking up a small plume of water.

The King of Red Lions coasted out to meet the boy. “Excellent work, Link,” he praised once the boy had clambered into him. The King of Red Lions was a boat like no other on the Great Sea, yet he wasn’t above giving children a much-needed lift--especially when such a child was a destined one like Link. The boy could be slow-witted at times, but he had great promise, courage to spare, and a true heart. He put others’ concern before his own--sometimes at great risk to his life. All of these were fundamental traits of a true hero.

Link squeezed water from his green tunic and conical hat before flashing a smile at The King of Red Lions’s turned-back head. “No troubles?” The King of Red Lions asked. Link shook his head and removed his delivery bag. The King of Red Lions chuckled. “I should think not, given what you overcame along your journey so far.”

Link rummaged around until he found his bait bag. He took out a hyoi pear and fell to eating it while he rolled out his new chart and studied it. This chart was a peculiar one, being divided into many sections like one would cut a pie. Each section had an island drawn within it, accompanied by a depiction of one of the moon’s phases. Link’s face warped into a frown, and his chewing paused. 

The King of Red Lions had turned forward to keep an eye out for gyorgs. He turned back to Link to find the boy holding the chart up and turning it clockwise. “What are you doing?” The King of Red Lions asked. The confused look that peeked over the chart’s top edge told the boat all he needed to know. “Lay it flat again and let me look at it.”

Link spread the chart against The King of Red Lions’s deck, and the boat studied it in silence while he bobbed atop the sea’s low waves. “It looks simple enough to understand,” The King of Red Lions remarked, and Link huffed. “Do you see these depictions of the moon? If we go to the island drawn alongside it, we should come across the fabled Ghost Ship, and the Triforce chart that is said to be carried on it.” Link frowned again and took a slow bite of pear. “Yes,” The King of Red Lions confirmed with a solemn nod. “The very Ghost Ship that the fishman warned us of. Yet we have no choice if we’re to gather the power needed to return to Hyrule and conquer Ganondorf.”

Link nodded and tapped the image that depicted Greatfish Isle, seeing how his mouth was too full to speak. He looked up to The King of Red Lions for confirmation, and the boat replied, “You’re right. It will be there tonight.” He looked up at the sun overhead. “We should reach the area in good time if we leave now. Give us our heading, Link, and let’s be off.”

The Wind Waker--a divine gift bestowed to Link by The King of Red Lions--was pulled out of the boy’s tunic where it was always kept safe. Link moved it through the Wind’s Requiem, the motions second-nature after so long with the baton. With the final motion, a gust of wind swept across the sea, roughing the water and forcing Link to hunch over with his back to it. Seawater carried by the shifting wind further dampened his tunic and hat. They dried under the sinking sun along the journey to Greatfish Isle.

The moon had replaced the sun by the time Link and The King of Red Lions arrived to their destination. Link averted his eyes from the dark silhouette of the ruined Greatfish Isle. It stood out as a dark, jagged stain against the star-smeared night sky. It was a permanent reminder of the power his enemy wielded, and how Link had failed in one aspect of his quest.

The King of Red Lions sensed Link’s ill thoughts. He turned his head back and caught the boy’s eyes behind the sail’s boom. “It was not your fault,” The King of Red Lions said. He repeated these words almost every time he and Link passed by the ruined isle. Link turned away without answering. His eyes reflected the stars when they widened in alarm at the sight of something on the water.

Dark clouds obscured the sky at an alarming speed, bringing all the elements of a storm with them. Lightning flashed, followed by a close clap of thunder, and Link dropped to The King of Red Lions’s deck with a cry of fear. Less than a dozen boat-lengths away, a phantom ship rested atop the sea. It left no wake, and it appeared solid only in the flashes of lightning. In the lightning’s lull, the blue flames of spirits surrounded the transparent hull and rigging. The creak of ancient boards was audible between the rolls of thunder.

Link shivered from both the ice cold rain and out of fear of the Ghost Ship. A grainy pictograph and a fishman’s tale had nothing on the bone-deep chill that crept across the water from the ship, or the ghastly moans that played at Link’s ears. He wanted the curl up belowdecks and pass the hours until morning beneath a thick blanket that would block out the sight and sound of the horror.

Where Link was quaking, The King of Red Lions looked on at the Ghost Ship with a calm face--or so Link guessed, given that much of the boat’s visage was carved from immobile wood. The boat’s head turned and his eyes--glowing yellow in the darkness--narrowed at Link’s pallid complexion. “It appears a lot less frightening than many of the challenges you’ve faced so far, doesn’t it?” A small, reluctant smile broke the fear in Link’s face. “Shall we proceed?”

In answer, Link took hold of The King of Red Lions’s rudder and turned the boat towards the Ghost Ship. They coasted along without a sail so as to better control their course over the short distance. The ship gave no indication of noticing them, so perhaps it was coincidence that its bow swung around and began to bear down on them.

“Link, the rudder! Steer us out of its way!” The King of Red Lions called over the storm and the ghostly noise. Link paid the order no heed. His wide eyes stared, unblinking, at the approaching Ghost Ship, and his stiff hand on the rudder prevented The King of Red Lions from taking over the steering.

“ _Link!_ ” The King of Red Lions called one final time. Link heard the shout as if from a great distance--an inconsequential sound. The creaks and moans of the Ghost Ship were far louder. The bow filled Link’s vision, and a shadow covered his mind. Someone laughed in his ears.

#

Link came to with an aching head and The King of Red Lions’s last call ringing in his ears. He blinked the fog from his eyes only to find it persisted throughout his surroundings. He was belowdecks in a large hold--the Ghost Ship’s hold, he guessed when he saw spirits flitting through the cracks and holes in the hull. Link gasped when he noticed the spirits’ eyes staring at him, and the subsequent exhale left his mouth in a white cloud. His skin was rough with gooseflesh, and he had to stiffen his jaw lest his teeth would chatter.

Link found a ladder that took him down to the hold’s lower floor. There was no cargo, however another ladder on the far side of the hold looked promising; it led up to a small room. By standing on his toes and craning his head up, Link could just see the tops of barrels and a chest through the room’s doorway. He decided to begin his search for the Triforce chart there. Link relaxed back onto his boot heels and started towards the far ladder. 

A beam of moonlight drew Link’s attention halfway across the hold. It lanced down from a hole in the hull to fall upon the floor in a small blot of milky light. A white flower was growing out of the cracked floor, fed by the moonlight. To see such a beautiful thing in the midst of ghastly surroundings was remarkable. Link diverted from his course and walked up to the flower to inspect it. He crouched just outside of the smear of moonlight and reached out with a gentle hand to stroke the flower’s petals. They were as soft as silk, and the blossom bobbed when Link drew his hand away, almost as if it was thanking him for the attention.

Something shuffled behind Link. He straightened up and spun around. The fog obscured most of the hold, but it was clear there was… something… within it. Something alive--or perhaps dead, given the Ghost Ship’s reputation. Link reached over his shoulder for the Master Sword he carried on his back. He also drew out his shield, and he kept it half-raised in anticipation of an attack.

The something made a sound again--to Link’s left this time, and much closer. He gasped and staggered back a step when he saw a pair of white eyes gleaming in the fog. His boot heel crushed the flower, and everything broke loose.

With screams and howls, spirits burst out of every crack and hole of the Ghost Ship’s broken hull. They swarmed towards Link and emitted a cacophonous wall of noise that struck him dumb. The first spirit hit him like a cold punch. It passed through without leaving a wound, but the flash of its memories and despair sucked the breath from Link’s lungs. With a scream, he began to run. 

The fog had cleared in the wake of the onslaught, but now the air was thick with spirits. Every step brought some foreign memory or emotion to Link. It was enough to stagger his steps and prove his sword and shield useless. He stowed both of them away on his back to better run. Tears fell from his eyes as the wretched memories of the cursed spirits shredded his courage.

A ladder appeared in an opening between the swarming mass of spirits. Link pushed aside the sound of the wails (His own or the spirits’? He could no longer tell.) and took hold of the ladder. He raced up the rungs with the spirits roaring and spiraling after him. They tried to pull him down with their intangible grips. As each ghostly hand passed through Link, it sent a chill up his spine. He pushed on, and he reached the top of the ladder after what felt like an endless climb. He stumbled over the edge in hopes of seeing the exit, yet it was the small room he came to instead. 

The spirits’ screams died with Link’s first step over the threshold of the room. He spun around with a gasp of surprise to find the hold empty and a new flower growing within the lance of moonlight that divided the returned fog. Everything was still and silent. 

Link turned back to the room with a shudder in his tired limbs. The first thing to catch his attention was a carved face hanging on the far wall of the room. It had a somber expression, and the Ghost Ship’s cursed years at sea had turned the carving green with mildew. Link dropped his eyes from the carving only to snap them up the next second. For a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he had seen the carving’s face warp into a sharp-toothed grin. Yet it was likely a figment of his overstressed imagination, for the carving was still the same.

Beneath the carved face, an old, rusted chest sat against the wall. There was a padlock, but a few strikes with the edge of Link’s shield broke it into pieces. They thumped to the ground at Link’s feet with an ominous sound, matched only by the eerie creak of the chest when Link lifted the lid. 

Within the chest, resting on dusty velvet, was a purple-marked chart. Link’s pale face broke into a relieved smile, and he reached for the chart. His hand stopped short when he heard someone gasp behind him.

“Link? Link, is that you?”

Link stood frozen with one hand extended towards the chart and the other holding up the chest’s lid against the wall. His face was stiff with surprise, bewilderment, and fear. He knew that voice. He hadn’t heard it in years, yet he instantly recognized it.

“It _is_ Link, isn’t it?” spoke up a second voice. The first voice was female; this one was male. “You’ve grown so much, lad.”

It couldn’t be… They were… They were _dead._ A storm had taken them by surprise, and they had sunk to the bottom of the sea. Link knew that. He _knew_ that. And yet his mind screamed at him to turn around; to look on their faces once more; to verify that he truly was hearing his mother and father again.

“Link, we’ve missed you so much,” his mother said in a voice that was bright with happiness. “Won’t you come with us, Link? We can be a family again.”

“We can pick up Aryll too,” his father added. “And Grandma, of course. We can all be together again, free of worry and time.”

“But if you pick up that chart,” his mother continued, and her words hardened, “we’ll never see each other again. You’ll break this ship’s curse, and we’ll disappear with it. We’ll never be able to sail the seas again, or be together.”

“Don’t you want to be together with us?” his father questioned.

“Yes, be together with us.”

“Just close the chest, Link.”

“Yes, close it and turn around, darling, and let us look at you properly.”

“We want to be together with you, Link, but you have to make that choice.”

“Listen to us, Link.”

“Yes, listen, or we’ll never be together again.”

_Together. Together, together, together…_

The word had lost all meaning to Link. He stood with stiff limbs, unable to decide or even move. They sounded just like them, down to the very inflection. So why was he hesitating? He could put it all behind him--Ganondorf, the sunken land of Hyrule, the heavy task on his shoulders… He could be with his family without care, and even if the world fell into the wrong hands it wouldn’t matter. The Ghost Ship would persist, and so would all of them aboard it.

What gave Link pause was the symbol he could see before his downturned eyes. Three triangles peeked out from behind the string keeping the Triforce chart closed. They signified everything he had put into his quest so far: the fears, the wounds, the courage, and the sacrifices. Aryll was safe, yet Tetra still remained in danger. And what of King Daphnes--The King of Red Lions? Was it right for Link to doom his hopes? To choose a selfish, perpetual existence over the lives of everyone who had come before and after Hyrule’s drowning?

“Link…” A soft hand fell onto Link’s trembling shoulder. “No one will ever blame you. Be together with us, and let all of your worries go.”

Link blinked tears from his eyes and raised his head. His fingers loosened their grip on the chest’s lid. The hand on his shoulder wasn’t cold like the earlier spirits’ hands. It was warm and comforting. It brought only happy memories. His muscles relaxed under it, and the chest’s lid dropped a few inches. 

By chance, Link’s attention slipped from the hand on his shoulder to the hint of green he could see on the edges of his vision. It solidified into a hungry, toothy grin set into a laughing face. The hand on his shoulder grew cold, and the fingers tightened until the nails drew pinpricks of pain. 

Link snatched up the Triforce chart with the swiftness of a striking snake. A scream split his eardrums and vibrated through his skull. He screamed with it, but kept a tight grip on the chart while his surroundings fell apart. The last to go were the voices of his mother and father. Link opened his eyes and finally turned to face them, only to see The King of Red Lions’s solemn face instead.

Link was back on the Great Sea. Greatfish Isle was to his left, and the Ghost Ship was nowhere in sight. The sky was clear again. Link looked up at the thick spread of stars and felt tears burning his eyes. His hand squeezed the hard-won chart.

“Link, are you all right?” The King of Red Lions asked in a quiet voice. Link turned wet eyes onto him. “What happened, lad?”

The term of endearment brought back what Link had almost regained, and he collapsed to The King of Red Lions’s deck in a fit of tears. He buried his face into his folded legs and covered his head with his arms. He felt The King of Red Lions’s wooden jaws tug on the Triforce chart, and he gave it up without a struggle. Yet he wouldn’t look up for several minutes, and it was almost a quarter hour later before he was able to tell what had happened. By then, his tears were dry trails on his cheeks, and most of the shake had left his body.

The King of Red Lions listened to the tale without speaking. When Link had finished, the boat looked up at the stars. Link looked up as well. “I will not tell you that you made the correct decision,” The King of Red Lions said. “In such a case as the one you faced, there is no right or wrong. Men and women greater than you would have chosen to be reunited with their loved ones, whether it was a farce or not.” 

The King of Red Lions lowered his eyes, and Link also dropped his head to meet the glowing, yellow gaze. “However, if you will permit me to speak selfishly: I am glad you chose to continue your quest. It would have saddened me to part from you without even a proper goodbye. I am quite fond of you, you know!” The King of Red Lions laughed a little, and a touch of red came to Link’s cheeks. “Come. I know a place that will put the wind back into our sails in all manners of the term.”

#

“Left! Left some more! Right now! Don’t be afraid of those barrels--I can clear them!”

The seawater sprayed past both sides of The King of Red Lions’s hull as he sped along the Boating Course. The sail and rigging strained each time Link made rapid adjustments to catch the most of the wind. He whooped in the breaks between turns, and The King of Red Lions roared in delight whenever he leapt one of the floating barrels dotting the twisting course. Each landing kicked up more water and rattled up Link’s legs to widen his smile.

“Can you get those, Link?” The King of Red Lions called back. Under Link’s expert direction, he was approaching a floating barrel with glinting rupees spread across its flat end. Link swung out over the side of The King of Red Lions’s deck with one hand holding onto the sail’s boom. His other hand snatched a handful of rupees, and he cheered along with The King of Red Lions. The boom swung back and caught a burst of wind that carried the companions into another jump across the course’s finish line. Loot, the proprietor of the Boating Course, blew his whistle and shouted out Link’s time with much admiration.

The King of Red Lions slowed to a stop and turned his head back to Link. “I believe we’ve done a fair job,” he remarked. Link laughed and hugged The King of Red Lions’s wide head. “Let’s collect our prize.”

The King of Red Lions coasted to the island’s shore, and Link clambered out to speak to Loot. He was given a Piece of Heart--a heart-shaped fragment of a mystical jewel. Link bowed in thanks before returning to The King of Red Lions to show off his prize. Once he found three other fragments, he would be able to activate the power within all four to strengthen himself. Until that time, the prize would be stored away in a secure compartment.

The King of Red Lions rocked back and forth when Link attempted to store the Piece of Heart. The boy laughed as he fought to keep his balance on the moving deck, and The King of Red Lions laughed with him before stilling. The Piece of Heart was secured, a wave goodbye was passed with Loot, and Link and The King of Red Lions sailed away, heading for the next leg of their adventure.

“We’ve come very far together,” The King of Red Lions spoke up. Link nodded in agreement as he studied the array of Triforce charts he had so far collected. “Yet we have a ways to go too. However, I wouldn’t put my faith in anyone save you, Link. And I’m not the only one. A lot of your friends are out there, supporting you in any way they can. Would you say that’s fair compensation for what you sacrificed on the Ghost Ship?” The King of Red Lions turned his head back and caught Link’s second nod. “Then are you willing to continue with me?”

Link’s determined eyes answered the question better than any words could. With a nod of his own, The King of Red Lions turned forward again and fixed his eyes on the horizon. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”


End file.
